In the past two years, Waymo has scaled up a robotaxi service in the Phoenix area, locked in or expanded partnerships with Volvo and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, acquired at least one company, launched a lidar business and ramped up testing of its automated trucks. Standing at the front line of this change — and Waymo’s […]
With a hot IPO market and a world accelerating its shift to digital technologies amidst a pandemic, it’s a busy time for late-stage startups. Happily, the current moment is generating a wave of leaks and news. So much so, it’s actually been pretty hard to keep up. In honor of the somewhat crazy week we’ve […]
In the latest sign of U.S. platforms bracing for the 2020 U.S. presidential election in November, Twitter has said it will step up efforts to prevent its service from being used to target voters with false information around election participation. Earlier today Facebook announced the launch of a voting hub aimed at combating election misinformation […]
By all accounts, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of robotics and automation by months, if not years. The reasons are fairly clear — robotics don’t call in sick, nor are they disease vectors in the same manner as their human counterparts. As food production and agriculture are looking to be among the biggest […]
While you may have heard this phrase several hundred too many times this year, it remains true: These are unprecedented times. At least a dozen industries are in a state of flux, and only time (a relatively short amount of time) will tell if they can evolve quickly enough to stay in the game. A […]
Omaze, the startup that became famous for its celebrity-centric fundraisers, is announcing it has raised $30 million in Series B funding. Some of the company’s best-known campaigns include opportunities to meet Michelle Obama, meet “Star Wars” cast members and visit the set of “Star Trek Beyond.” (I’ll admit that I threw my hat in the […]
Google today announced a few new features for Wear OS we can expect from the next over-the-air update, which is slated to arrive this fall. The focus here, Google says, is on fundamentals, and that includes improved performance, with up to 20% speed improvements for app startup times, for example. The company also said it […]
Apple is reportedly getting ready to launch new bundles of its various subscription services, according to Bloomberg. The bundled services packages, said to be potentially called “Apple One,” will offer Apple services including Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, Apple News+ and iCloud in a number of different tiered offerings, all for one fee that […]
As TikTok’s fate remains in flux, its smaller rival Likee has been making waves around the world, garnering 150 million monthly active users as of this June. That’s according to the earnings report of Chinese internet company Joyy, the owner of Likee. For comparison, TikTok recorded about 200 million daily active users in early 2020, […]
Eager to avoid a repeat of its disastrous role as a super-spreader of misinformation during the 2016 election cycle, Facebook is getting its ducks in a row. Following an announcement earlier this summer, the company is now launching a voting information hub that will centralize election resources for U.S. users and ideally inoculate at least […]
Ever hear the expression, “every master was once a disaster?” Now apply that to developing a well-crafted pitch. It takes practice and honest feedback to make a masterful pitch, and that’s exactly what you’ll get when you participate in our next Pitchers & Pitches. It’s 50% competition, 50% masterclass and 100% free. Join us tomorrow, […]
Earlier this year, the founders of Stream, a five-year-old, 60-person startup with offices in Boulder and Amsterdam, weren’t feeling so great about their prospects. As COVID-19 began its spread in the U.S., some smaller customers of the startup — whose APIs enable product teams to build chat and activity feeds for their applications — began […]
Investors are betting on the automation of human resources management in China. We reported last year that Moka, one of the key players in the space, secured roughly $27 million for its Series B led by Hillhouse Capital. This week, the startup announced closing a Series B+ at over 100 million yuan ($14.4 million), lifting […]
Music is front and center in the rise of TikTok and other short-video apps. It’s not just the video platforms that are harvesting the fruit of their surging popularity. Music rights holders are also prepared to extract money from the millions of songs found in snappy user-generated videos. To detect copyrighted content, record labels and […]
Chinese giant ByteDance is engaging in early discussions with Reliance Industries Limited for backing TikTok’s business in India in a move to potentially save the popular video app’s fate in its biggest market by users, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. TikTok has been banned in India since June 29 as a fallout […]
At TechCrunch Early Stage, Minted CEO and serial founder Mariam Naficy got into the weeds with us on some of the topics founders don’t often discuss. What’s the difference between expectations and reality when it comes to entrepreneurialism? How do you split responsibilities between co-founders? What’s the key to being great at hiring? We also […]
Uber’s CEO pushes back against a potential reclassification of drivers, a former COO sues Pinterest and Microsoft reveals details about the Surface Duo. This is your Daily Crunch for August 12, 2020. The big story: Uber CEO says CA shutdown could be necessary Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi appeared on MSNBC today and claimed that if […]
For decades, Burning Man has represented an escape from the current reality. An event for free-er spirits to rethink new age ideals inside a stateless entity where art, music and partying reign supreme on the desert plains. Over the years, the Bay Area-founded event has dealt with an internal clash as the gathering has grown […]
You could Zoom call into your science class, or you could conduct a lab experiment in virtual reality. During the coronavirus pandemic, the latter has never felt more full of potential. The global need for learning solutions beyond Zoom is precisely why Labster, a Copenhagen-based startup that helps individuals engage in STEM lab scenarios using […]
Today after the bell, Lyft reported its second-quarter financial performance. The American ride-hailing company’s results helped illustrate just how much the economy has changed in the wake of COVID-19 and its resulting disruptions to life, travel and work. Uber’s own results, which were shared last week, provided hints of what was coming for Lyft. The […]
